Interlochen Arts Academy students excel at national level of the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards
Nine students from four majors received a total of 14 awards in the prestigious national competition.
Marlene Schwier’s award-winning work “Bricks, Buildings, and Hockeysticks.” Note: This drawing has been cropped to fit this space.
Abby Amdur’s award-winning print “Secluded.” Note: This image has been cropped to fit this space.
A sculpture from Arts Academy student Quoc Bui’s Silver Medal-winning entry, “Fite.”
Yutetsu Horacek's award-winning work, "Fragments."
Nine Interlochen Arts Academy students from four majors received a total of 14 awards at the national level of the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards.
Creative writers Samantha Haviland, Zoe Reay-Ellers, and Kaydance Rice received a total of five awards, including two of the competition’s most prestigious honors. Haviland, a senior from Mamaroneck, New York, earned a Gold Medal and a coveted American Voices Medal for her poem, “The Body as a Place for Lost Things.” Rice, a junior from Jenison, Michigan, received a Gold Medal and a Best-in-Grade Award for her personal essay, “40 Prompts for Thanksgiving Dinner.” Reay-Ellers earned a Silver Medal with Distinction.
Visual artists Abby Amdur, Quoc Bui, Yutetsu Horacek, and Marlene Schwier earned a total of six awards. Amdur, a senior from Carbondale, Colorado, earned a Gold Medal and a Best-in-Grade Award for her print, “Secluded.” Schwier, a junior from Brooklyn, New York, received a Gold Medal and a prestigious American Visions Medal for her drawing, “Bricks, Buildings, and Hockeysticks.” Bui and Horacek both received Silver Medals.
Film & New Media student Angela Kwak received a Silver Medal and the Michigan State New York Life Award for her film, “Belated Wishes.” The New York Life Award recognizes exceptional works about personal grief, loss, and bereavement; award-winning students are eligible for scholarship prizes up to $1,000.
Music student Clara Devey received a Silver Medal for her critical essay, “Let’s Learn How to Talk.”
This year—the 99th year of the competition—more than 100,000 teen artists in grades 7-12 submitted more than 260,000 works of art and literature. Of these, less than 2,000 were selected by a panel of acclaimed visual and literary arts luminaries to receive national prizes.
National medalists will be recognized at a ceremony at Carnegie Hall in New York in June. Selected works will be featured in the National Exhibition in New York City and in traveling exhibitions shown in Washington, D.C. and at museums across the country. Winning works are also eligible for inclusion in the 2022 editions of Best Teen Writing and Best Teen Art, the competition’s annual publications of award-winning student writing and art. National medalists will also be considered for a variety of scholarship awards.
Founded in 1923, the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards are presented by the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers to recognize and celebrate the vision, ingenuity, and talent of our nation’s youth. Each year, young artists in grades 7-12 are invited to submit their works in 29 different categories of art and writing for the chance to earn scholarships and exhibition opportunities.
2022 Interlochen Arts Academy recipients
- Abby Amdur | Visual Arts | Gold Medal, Best-in-Grade Award
- Quoc Bui | Visual Arts | Silver Medal
- Clara Devey | Music | Silver Medal
- Samantha Haviland | Creative Writing | Gold Medal, American Voices Medal
- Yutetsu Horacek | Visual Arts | Silver Medal
- Angela Kwak | Film & New Media | Silver Medal, Michigan State New York Life Award
- Zoe Reay-Ellers | Creative Writing | Silver Medal with Distinction
- Kaydance Rice | Creative Writing | Gold Medal, Best-in-Grade Award
- Marlene Schwier | Visual Arts | Gold Medal, American Visions Medal
